The poet PM, India’s Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee is no more

On 16 August 2018, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 'father of modern telecom in India',breathed his last at the AIIMS hospital, New Delhi. He was 93.

According to Bharti Enterprise Chairman and founder of Bharti Airtel Sunil Bharti Mittal, Atal Ji was a great economic reformer and can truly be called father of modern telecommunication in the country, having ushered in the National Telecom Policy in 1999, which "helped the industry overcome some of its toughest early challenges".

Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who earlier owned BPL mobile service company, said that Vajpayee was responsible for opening up the telecom sector and giving policy impetus to expand telecommunication sector in the country.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the telecom policy of 1999 released by the NDA government under Vajpayee paved the way for structural reforms in the sector, leading to unprecedented growth of mobile subscribers, introduction of fierce competition into the mobile telephony sector, and deep-rooted reforms in the regulatory regime, which was followed up by the amendment of the TRAI Act in 1999.

The new telecom policy 1999 allowed companies to provide mobile services on revenue share basis instead of fixed fees that mobile companies had to pay for providing mobile services.

"A great economic reformer, as a prime minister he was always guided by a strong conviction that liberalisation would help us realise our economic potential and ultimately open the doors to becoming a globally competitive, strong and resilient economy," Mittal said.

The iconic leader, who was loved by all parties, faiths, was suffering from multiple ailments for the last nine weeks. He was admitted to AIIMS hospital on June 11.

He was the 10th Prime Minister of India. He has had three terms as Prime Minister, the first two that lasted 13 days and 13 months respectively. He became the first non-Congress PM to complete a full term when he was elected in 1998 and demoted office in 2004.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was born on December 25, 1924 in Gwalior to Krishna Devi and Krishna Bihari Vajpayee. He was conferred Padma Vibhushan in 1992 and bestowed with the Bharat Ratna in 2014.